


Two Roads Diverged

by endgirl



Series: Miles to Go Before I Sleep [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alpha Lexa, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Angst, F/F, Fingering, First Time, Fluff and Smut, G!P, Girl Penis Lexa, Omega Clarke, Omegaverse, Oral Sex, References to Knotting, Size Kink, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 11:14:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14354316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endgirl/pseuds/endgirl
Summary: A glimpse into Clarke and Lexa's first time together in Polis. Nervous bbs, unexpected knots, multiple orgasms, and more! Set during 307, but no warnings apply.A one-shot set in the Miles to Go Before I Sleep universe, before the main story, but can also stand alone.





	Two Roads Diverged

**Author's Note:**

> If you've been reading Miles to Go Before I Sleep, this is Clarke and Lexa's first time in Polis that's alluded to in the main story. I promise I'm still actively writing that one, things have just been busy in real life and I needed to work on something (very slightly) different for a little while.
> 
> If you haven't read MTGBIS, this is still just Clarke and Lexa's first time in Polis! No need to read the other story first, as this one stands alone. If you decide to check it out later on, the main story is set after this one.

It happened more quickly than Lexa expected.

In one moment, the Skaikru ambassador stood before her at her bedroom window, wondering if there would ever come a time when they would owe nothing more to their people. In the next, Clarke Griffin had invaded her space and her senses—and then, her mouth.

Clarke’s eyebrows knitted as her lips pressed to Lexa’s. In anguish or determination, Lexa couldn’t say. Perhaps both. Perhaps more.

Lexa stood stiffly, tense with surprise, even as her lips surrendered on her behalf. She had not hoped for this. She had wanted it—imagined it, even, in her weakest moments—but she had not dared to hope. She had had her chance with the girl from the stars, and she had squandered it. She’d chosen her people instead. Clarke had handed over her trust, the most sacred gift an omega could grant an alpha, and Lexa had shattered it. She’d left Clarke to die on the Mountain, ordered her abduction from the woods, and compelled her to kneel before all of Polis in order to cement her own command.

She did not regret her actions, but neither did she reject their consequences. She had accepted Clarke’s hatred, not to mention the spit on her cheek and the knife pressed to her neck all those weeks ago. Even now that tempers had cooled, she counted each civil exchange between them as the gift that it was.

Deep down, she believed, Clarke knew she would have done the same had their positions been reversed. She was a venerable leader in her own right, and part of her must have understood the decisions Lexa had made. But knowing, understanding… this was not trust. It was not forgiveness, nor even friendship—and it certainly was not Clarke’s tongue darting out to taste Lexa’s own.

Lexa pulled back from the kiss, unable to go on ignorant of where she stood in Clarke’s esteem. Her gaze flicked from side to side, seeking answers in shining eyes. She opened her mouth to speak, but she was struck silent by Clarke’s expression.

Despite their history, Clarke did not look as if she were serving up another peace offering. The glow on her face did not look like a goodbye. Somehow, Clarke looked as if she’d been longing for this moment just as fervently as Lexa had been.

As she took Clarke in, the time they’d shared as Heda and Ambassador—time that had grown warmer and murkier as the weeks passed—began to take on new meaning in Lexa’s mind. Meaning that her weak heart had whispered in the dark privacy of her chambers, but her head had refused to acknowledge.

Lexa leaned in again, and this time she didn’t just react. She acted. Her fingers found Clarke’s hair as they kissed, and she took long breaths of the intoxicating scent on her skin. She could no longer smell the dozens of burning candles in the room, or the sweat and spices of the city outside. Only Clarke, and the sweet, dizzying arousal that seeped through her pheromones.

Without parting their lips, Clarke reached behind Lexa’s neck to make swift work of the complicated loops and hooks that clasped her shirt. Lexa couldn’t help the desire that flooded her own scent, or the way her alpha ego swelled. Judging by the nimble movements of Clarke’s fingers, Lexa wasn’t the only one who had imagined this too many times to count.

The fabric around her shoulders fell loose, but Clarke’s mouth never let up. She gripped Lexa’s hips, then her hands, as she urged them toward the bed. The backs of Lexa’s knees hit the mattress first, and she let herself fall.

It was Clarke, now, who stared down at her. Clarke who searched her eyes, asking questions she surely knew the answers to.

Lexa could do nothing but blink back, awed, and hope the omega understood.

Lexa was hers.

Whatever she wanted. Whatever she needed. It was hers.

Clarke leaned in again, and they fell back together on the bed. The rays of sun from the window shone in a halo around her, painting her hair in gold. She found the shoulders of Lexa’s shirt and rolled it down her arms, until Lexa’s breasts were exposed and the fabric was looped around her middle, forgotten.

Lexa felt her nipples tighten into pebbles in an instant, heedless of the glow of the sun or the warmth from the candles scattered about the bedroom. She might have flushed at her immoderate reaction, but Clarke’s chest blanketed her bare skin before she could consider it. A second later, with a searing kiss, Clarke’s leg slipped between her own.

She gasped as the omega’s thigh ground into her center, which was still flat and smooth beneath her clothing. The pressure made her muscles shudder and her clit twitch with the urge to grow.

“Clarke,” she choked out.

The name was meant to be a warning. Instead, it carried every wisp of the desire she had tried to hide from her voice since that day in her tent before the Mountain fell. It betrayed every ounce of feeling she had worked so hard to conceal.

Clarke didn’t seem to have the breath to reply. She kissed Lexa hard enough to bruise, but Lexa reveled in each harsh grind of their hips and every accidental clash of their teeth.

In time, though, Clarke’s frenzy calmed. Instead of feeling, Lexa suspected, she had begun to think.

Head over heart. Strength over weakness. Or so Lexa had thought.

Clarke kissed her twice more, then pulled back a few inches. Her cheeks looked ruddy, and her breath came in short bursts. The cloying scent of wetness drifted up from between their bodies and stuck in the back of Lexa’s throat. And yet, as Clarke studied her face, deep in thought, the omega looked… uncertain.

Clarke’s hesitant pause gave Lexa’s own brain a chance to catch up with her body. Her chest was heaving, and her potent alpha pheromones had spilled from the tight hold she normally kept on them. Her nipples were like rocks, and her clit had already begun to distend, despite the fact that Clarke hadn’t even really touched her yet.

Lexa closed her eyes for a moment, determined to regain control. She had anticipated Clarke would have this effect on her, but not so instantaneously. Of course, it had been a long time since she’d been in a position like this, and longer still since sex had been prompted by anything but the basest needs of her rut.

She forced herself to open her eyes. “I have not—” she began, then stopped. “I haven’t… since Costia. Not with someone I…”

Clarke’s face softened, and some of her hesitance seemed to fade. She stroked a wisp of Lexa’s hair from her temple. “Don’t worry. We’ll go slow, okay?”

Lexa nodded jerkily against the furs, praying that slow was within her abilities. As Heda, she could stare down dissidents for hours without so much as blinking. She could watch ambassadors debate for days to arrive at conclusions she’d already drawn and never grow impatient. But as Lexa—as Lexa with _Clarke_ —all her carefully cultivated composure seemed to vanish into smoke.

But when Clarke leaned in, she did not resume her frenetic pace. She let her hair fall in a glowing curtain around Lexa’s head, and her lips brushed so softly over Lexa’s cheekbones that it was difficult to say whether they’d been there at all. Her fingers explored with the unhurried contemplation of an artist—first the contours of Lexa’s arms, then the curves of her ribs and the dip in her waist. Each touch made fire burn along Lexa’s skin and between her legs, where her clit was growing so quickly that she would soon be straining against the denim of her trousers.

It was Clarke who had reminded her that life was about more than survival, but Lexa didn’t know if she would survive this. Clarke’s hands on her skin, her leg between her thighs… it was becoming too much, and Lexa could feel the alpha inside her begin to stir.

 _Take_ , it snarled. _Claim_. _Mate_.

Instead, Lexa eased Clarke over and onto her back. Clarke sighed with disappointment at the separation, but her complaint ended abruptly as Lexa stripped away her own puddled shirt and moved to hover over her. 

She peered down, a question on her lips.

Clarke nodded hastily, breathing hard. “I’m sure.”

Lexa felt a heavy throb between her legs. She pressed rough, messy kisses along Clarke’s jaw, then down her throat. She paused at the crook of her neck to inhale the powerful source of her scent. It made her dizzy with need as she kissed down Clarke’s neckline and over her full breasts, all the way to the hem of her shirt. She nudged the shirt up with her nose, then kissed Clarke’s soft stomach, too.

Clarke shivered at each brush of lips and cotton against her skin. The end of her tolerance came quickly, and her hands shot down to fumble with her shirt. She grunted with frustration as she struggled to tug it over her head without getting out from under Lexa.

Lexa sat back on her heels between Clarke’s thighs, amused. “I was under the impression that was my job.”

“Yeah, well,” Clarke said. She flashed a smile more beautiful than any Lexa had seen yet. “Too slow.”

Lexa laughed, and Clarke only grinned wider. Then Lexa’s gaze stumbled down to the milky skin that had just been exposed—to the full breasts held pert by some Skaikru contraption—and her laughter died in her throat.

Clarke must have mistaken her awe for confusion, for she reached behind her own back and unfastened the garment herself. The straps and cups fell away, and the bare skin left behind only dazed Lexa all the more.

Clarke was… perfect. She had a faint scar over her ribs that looked like the handiwork of a blade, and fine, pale lines where her breasts must have grown quickly, as omega girls’ often did. There was a freckle on one nipple, and goosebumps up and down her sides, and muscles that jumped under Lexa’s rapt gaze, and she was _perfect_.

“Lexa?”

She realized she was staring, wide-eyed, like some hormonal, adolescent pup. To hide the heat that flared in her cheeks, she leaned over to kiss the side of one of Clarke’s breasts, then the other.

“You’re beautiful,” she husked out.

She brushed the tip of her nose over the dusky pink nipple before her. Clarke let out a breathless mewl, and suddenly Lexa’s only desire was to hear it again. She trailed her lips across the underside of Clarke’s breast, then swirled her tongue around its hardening peak.

Clarke arched her back, one hand tangling fiercely in Lexa’s hair. She alternated between holding Lexa to her breasts and urging her head downward, and Lexa smiled around the nipple in her mouth. She was tempted to keep teasing, to see how high Clarke would stretch and how strong her grip would become, but she knew she didn’t have the strength to wait.

She kissed her way down Clarke’s stomach, over the jut of her hipbone and along the waistband of her Skaikru jeans. Clarke reached down to fiddle with the metal button, but Lexa caught her hand and kissed it. She didn’t know when—if—they would have a chance to be together like this again. She wanted to do it right, and that meant savoring every single second of Clarke’s presence in her bed. Every single moment before Clarke was called back to her burdens.

“This I am certain is my job,” she murmured near the zipper of Clarke’s jeans.

“Fine,” Clarke fake-griped. “But only if you hurry.”

Lexa did not. She took her time running her hands over Clarke’s denim-covered thighs, first down their muscled tops then back up along their tender insides. She was even slower at removing Clarke’s boots, her socks, and the empty _fayagon_ holster strapped to her leg.

She paused at the apex of Clarke’s thighs to breathe in the heady scent that had seeped through the fabric there. It was like nothing she’d ever experienced before. Sweet and welcoming, like morning dew in the sunshine after a storm. Powerful, like the forest beckoning her home. Omega—but more than anything, Clarke.

Lexa reached up to undo the metal button and slide the zipper down, inch by trembling inch. By the time she peeled the denim away, Clarke shuddered and squirmed against the sheets. She blew a soothing breath over the tight, damp fabric of her underwear.

“ _Lexa_ ,” Clarke growled.

In this moment, Lexa knew, Clarke was Wanheda once more. She was the Mountain Slayer, the Commander of Death. And who was Lexa to deny her?

She pressed a firm kiss to the soft mound between Clarke’s legs. Clarke cried out, relieved and surprised. Her hands found Lexa’s hair, and Lexa relished the growing blotch of wetness on her underwear. She stripped the fabric away, and at last she was kissing _Clarke_. She started with the insides of her thighs, then the soft wisps of hair between them. Then, finally, the warm, swollen flesh on either side of her slit.

The scents around her were overwhelming now, and it took every bit of Lexa’s self-control to keep her hips from jogging forward into nothing. She glanced up to find Clarke’s hooded eyes staring down at her, her name on the omega’s lips.

“Lexa,” Clarke began, panting and unsure. “Will you…?”

She couldn’t seem to voice her request, and Lexa was reminded of how very young she still was. She might have been the Commander of Death and the de facto leader of her people—not to mention the most stubborn woman Lexa knew—but she was also a girl of just eighteen summers. She had never gone into heat on the Ark, Lexa knew, which made it likely that her partners numbered as few as Lexa’s own, if not fewer. Lexa felt a rush of pleasure all over again that Clarke had invited her to be counted among them.

“ _Sha?_ ” she prompted, pressing a kiss to Clarke’s thigh.

Clarke licked her lower lip, glancing down between their bodies. She looked frustrated with herself for not being able to put words to what she wanted.

Rather than wait for a command she suspected would not come, Lexa leaned in. At the first honeyed taste, her shaft pulsed painfully against the seam of her trousers. She dragged her tongue from the base of Clarke’s opening up to the hard point of her clit.

“Yes,” Clarke yelped. Her hips thrust up into Lexa’s mouth. “That.”

Lexa laved her tongue back down through Clarke’s folds, testing for spots that would make her sigh and motions that would make her shudder. For a split second, fear reared its head. What if, after all this anticipation, she was unable to please the omega in her bed? Then she stroked a circle around Clarke’s clit, and her worries disappeared.

Clarke began to writhe on the furs. With another dozen quick strokes, she was thrashing and grinding against Lexa’s mouth. Lexa reached up to palm her breasts and catch her nipples between her fingers, and that was what pushed her over the edge. She jerked violently, and the sound of her cry sent burning waves of need through Lexa’s middle.

Lexa slowed down, though she had half a mind to never stop. Only when a hand nudged at her shoulder did she relent. She crawled her way back up Clarke’s body and hovered over her, full of wonder. Before she could wipe her mouth, Clarke leaned up and caught her in a kiss. It was bruising but tender. Greedy but giving. And it felt to Lexa as if they’d done it a thousand times before.

“Oh my god,” Clarke said, when they separated for air.

Lexa hid her wolfish grin in a kiss to Clarke’s cheek. She dropped onto her hip at Clarke’s side, head propped up on one hand, and took the opportunity to admire her handiwork. The omega’s entire body was flushed. Her nipples were no longer hard, but soft and swollen. Wetness had spilled onto her thighs, and Lexa couldn’t resist reaching down to drag her fingertips through it.

She was so riveted by the silky slickness that she didn’t notice Clarke’s wandering hand until it settled over her stomach. The muscles in her abdomen twitched in surprise, and her eyes shot up to meet Clarke’s.

Clarke was not looking at her in return. Her gaze was trained on the bulge in Lexa’s pants, her bottom lip tugged between her teeth. She let her hand wander lower and lower, until her warm fingers slid along Lexa’s hip. A moment later, they dipped into her waistband.

Lexa bit back a groan. Her hips jerked into the touch, then away from it.

“Clarke,“ she growled, a plea disguised as a warning.

At last Clarke looked up, brow creased. “Don’t you want me to…?”

Lexa managed to steady herself long enough to focus on Clarke’s face. To repeat the questioning words in her mind.

She swallowed, letting her chin dip toward her chest as she composed herself. She wanted Clarke to do a million things, but not because Clarke thought she should. Lexa knew that wasn’t how the omega operated—that Clarke wouldn’t let herself be pressured by flickering candlelight any more than by raging alpha pheromones, and she wouldn’t be here at all if she had doubts. But Lexa still needed to know that Clarke wanted whatever they did for herself, and not just for Lexa.

She spoke softly into Clarke’s collarbone. “Not yet.”

Until that time came—if it ever did—Lexa would worship her in every other way she knew how.

She slid back down Clarke’s body. At the omega’s little moan of surprise, her lips quirked. Clarke’s legs fell open wider than before, and this time Lexa didn’t hesitate. She licked along Clarke’s slit, then dipped her tongue inside. When Clarke started to squirm, she replaced her tongue with probing fingers. She teased the omega’s entrance until her hips began to rock, asking silently for more.

Lexa watched Clarke’s face as she eased one finger into the tight channel. When Clarke’s muscles rippled around her, she feared she would spill in her pants then and there. Instead, she grit her teeth. Clarke was beautiful like this—stunning like this—and she would not let even her own pleasure break her concentration as she seared this moment into her memory.

She gave a few gentle strokes, experimenting, then slipped a second finger in to join the first. Her lips found Clarke’s clit, and soon after a rhythm that made desperate fingernails slice into her shoulders.

When she felt Clarke’s inner muscles start to spasm, she curled her fingers inward. It was a lucky guess, and Clarke arched her back to shout her climax at the ceiling. She lightened the pressure on Clarke’s clit, but she didn’t let up. Clarke didn’t nudge her away this time, and soon she had coaxed her into a third shivering orgasm.

Lexa leaned back to lick the evidence from her lips, no longer bothering to hide her grin.

Clarke, though, seemed in no mood to rest. She leaned up on one elbow, and her eyes blazed. Her free hand curled around one of Lexa’s nail-marked biceps, frantically trying to drag her upwards.

“I need to touch you,” Clarke said.

Lexa moved back up the furs to lie beside her, drawing her into a deep kiss. This time when the omega’s hands flew down to fumble at the leather ties of her trousers, she didn’t resist.

When the waistband was loose enough, Clarke’s hand dipped inside. She palmed Lexa’s bulge through her tight undershorts, and her eyes grew wide.

Lexa didn’t know if Clarke was reacting to her size, or to how achingly hard she already was, or because she’d expected something else entirely. Her muddled brain tried to think of something reassuring to say, but she’d barely remembered her own name before Clarke was licking her lips and pushing the trousers down over her hips.

Clarke touched her through the stretchy shorts, little exploratory caresses that made Lexa’s cock twitch and her jaw flex. Just when she thought she would lose her mind, Clarke tugged her shorts down to let her shaft pop free.

The look on the omega’s face—the awe and the thrill and the abject hunger—made alpha pride flood Lexa’s thundering heart. She grew impossibly stiffer, and her scent sharpened with dominant pheromones.

Clarke, to her credit, did not succumb to them. Mouth still formed in an _O_ , she dragged her fingertips from the angry red head of Lexa’s cock, already beaded with moisture, down its hard underside. Her fingers trailed all the way to the shallow slit between Lexa’s legs, so similar to Clarke’s own and yet so very different. It felt fine, but it was the heel of Clarke’s hand on her shaft that made Lexa’s hips jog, desperate for friction.

It must have occurred to Clarke that she was torturing the alpha at her side, for she finally, finally wrapped her slim fingers around the base of Lexa’s cock and squeezed—hard.

“Lexa.” Clarke’s hoarse voice broke through the stars bursting in Lexa’s mind. “Fuck me.”

She couldn’t stop the growl that tore through her chest. She couldn’t control the bursts of harsh alpha scent that broke free as she ripped away her shorts and flipped Clarke onto her back. And she couldn’t help but revel in the way Clarke didn’t flinch from her power. If anything, she seemed to crave it.

Clarke spread her legs wide as Lexa came to kneel between them, positioning herself at her entrance. Clarke’s hips rose up, but Lexa drew back just far enough to avoid pressing into her.

Lexa knew Clarke was dripping—could smell it in the air—but she ran her fingers through her folds and twice over her clit just to be sure. The omega was even slicker than before, but still Lexa hesitated. As she stared down at her cock pulsing in her palm, it was difficult to imagine how it could ever fit inside Clarke’s tight opening without hurting her.

She glanced back up to Clarke’s face. It was obvious the thought had occurred to her, too.

“It’s okay,” Clarke said. Her eyes held a hint of nervousness, but desire was quickly edging it out. “Just go slowly.”

Lexa nodded, exhaling through her nose. Her alpha instincts may have risen to the surface, but she was still Heda. She commanded entire nations, and she would command her own need, too.

She leaned down to kiss Clarke, deep and slow and long. With the hand that wasn’t holding her weight, she guided the head of her shaft to Clarke’s entrance.

Lexa leaned back an inch, their noses bumping. She saw a dozen different emotions in Clarke’s eyes. Tenderness, excitement, apprehension. Old lingering hurt that made Lexa’s heart clench. And somewhere in the shining blue, joy.

 _I love you_ , Lexa wanted to say. _I love you, I love you, I love you._

Instead, she leaned forward and began to sink into white-hot heat.

Clarke cried out as the head of her cock slipped inside. She grasped Lexa’s shoulders, her breath heavy and fast, and Lexa held achingly steady to let her adjust. It took every shred of discipline that had ever been trained into her to keep from slamming her hips forward and sheathing herself in a single stroke, but somehow she held on.

When she felt Clarke relax around her, she edged in a little further, then a little further still. Soon the thickest part of her shaft was stretching Clarke open, and the omega tensed again.

Lexa hovered above, frozen.

“Keep going,” Clarke said, despite the mingled pleasure and pain on her face.

Lexa hesitated, but Clarke rolled her hips up to take another inch. She gave one last push, her lips on Clarke’s trembling ones, and finally she was seated deep inside the omega’s body.

“ _Fuck_ ,” tumbled from Clarke’s mouth, seemingly without her permission.

Lexa knew the feeling.

She held quakingly still as Clarke’s muscles fluttered around her, trying to make space. Only when Clarke began to rock beneath her did she draw back, inch by inch, then sink forward once more. She managed to keep the slow, measured rhythm until the traces of discomfort had vanished from Clarke’s face, but she couldn’t hold out any longer than that.

With a soft growl, she thrust in harder. Her strokes became short and deep, and her movements faster. Clarke bucked up at each thrust, grinding her clit against Lexa’s pelvis. Her core was like a vise around Lexa’s shaft—one Lexa never wanted to be released from. But she couldn’t remember ever being this on-edge, and she knew she wasn’t going to last.

Clarke reached up to palm at her own breast, and Lexa nearly exploded then and there.

“Clarke, I—” She clenched her jaw. Her breath puffed on Clarke’s neck as she struggled for control. “I can’t—”

Clarke seemed to understand. She reached down and gripped the tight muscles in Lexa’s ass, urging her in deeper. “Then don’t.”

Lexa let out an involuntary snarl. Her hips slammed forward. Her cock nudged the mouth of Clarke’s womb, and stars burst behind her eyes. She gave a handful more rough thrusts that made Clarke whine, but she could not let go. Not yet.

As Heda, her duty was to her people. But as an alpha, her duty was to her ma—

Lexa screwed her eyes shut, forcing the word away.

Clarke was not her mate. Not even her intended. But… was it weakness to imagine?

Yes, she decided. And she was weak.

She snaked a hand between their bodies to find Clarke’s clit. It was hard and slick, and she struggled to keep it between her fingers. As she rolled it back and forth, Clarke’s walls pulsed around her. Each violent spasm pushed her out before drawing her in even deeper.

After a few more erratic thrusts, Clarke stiffened. Her back arched. She let go with a hoarse cry, her inner muscles clenching mercilessly around Lexa’s cock.

The fraying ropes around Lexa’s control snapped. She rutted forward as her climax overcame her, her teeth snapping hollowly with the urge to sink into Clarke’s neck. To mark in flesh and blood what had already been branded on her soul. Just before she burst, she pulled out. She tried to catch the ropes of come between her fingers as they spilled, but the attempt was futile. Her seed painted Clarke’s skin from the insides of her thighs up over the curve of her stomach.

Lexa’s cheeks felt hot as she collapsed, elbows planted on either side of Clarke’s shoulders. It felt like a miracle she had managed to pull out at all—a feat on par with bringing Azgeda to kneel at the feet of the _Kongeda_ , or so it seemed in this moment—but Clarke probably didn’t see it quite the same way.

“ _Moba_ ,” Lexa said sheepishly, struggling to catch her breath. When she realized her language skills had gone the way of her seed, she flushed deeper. “Sorry.”

Clarke looked up at her, all soft eyes and crooked smiles. Her hand drifted down to touch the sticky liquid pooling on her stomach. One of her fingers twitched, and Lexa’s mind flashed with an image of Clarke bringing it to her lips to taste it. Her face must have betrayed her tawdry thoughts, for Clarke’s grin grew wider.

“I think… I like seeing you on me like this,” Clarke said. She cocked her head to one side on the pillow. “And I definitely like the way you’re blushing.”

Lexa groaned. But her heart felt full as she rolled over onto the furs to the sound of Clarke’s laughter.

Clarke turned onto her side and pressed a kiss to the corner of Lexa’s mouth. “But for the future, I do have a birth control implant.”

Lexa couldn’t quite translate the word _implant_ in this context, but she understood Clarke’s meaning. It was another word, though, that stuck in her throat and made her chest swell.

 _Future_.

Clarke thought they would have one someday.

With a glow in her heart, Lexa tugged a corner of the bed sheet out from under the mattress. She used it to wipe Clarke clean, then moved to swipe off her softening shaft. But when she glanced down, linen in hand, her eyes grew large.

Her shaft had not, in fact, softened.

And that wasn’t all.

Somehow, her knot had begun to form. Like a gash that hadn’t hurt until she’d noticed it, the sight of herself made a heavy throb travel from her stomach down to the swelling ring at the base of her cock. It must have started during her climax, when she’d been unable to distinguish the two intense feelings, and now it was as if she hadn’t come at all.

She sucked in a sharp breath, grinding her teeth in frustration. An alpha’s knot typically only formed with an omega in heat or during a first mating—or thanks to some sort of overwhelming emotion. And Lexa was all too aware what that emotion was.

If the depth of her feelings for Clarke hadn’t been painfully obvious before, they certainly were now. She saw the instant Clarke noticed her predicament, and she felt the same momentary rush of panic as right before she’d thought of _That’s why you’re you_.

They spoke at the same time.

“Does it—?”

“I’m—”

Lexa blinked up at the ceiling, cursing her biology. It was just like when she was a pup, unable to control her reaction when a pretty girl walked by outside the training grounds. But she had been a child then, and now she was grown. Now she was Heda. Now she was the master of her body in battle and in the bedroom… but apparently not in the presence of Clarke Griffin.

“You go,” Clarke said.

She cleared her throat, fighting to keep her breathing even. “No. Go ahead.”

“Does it hurt?” Clarke asked. Her hand hovered uncertainly between their bodies. Just the sight of those soft fingers—the thought of them wrapping around her—made Lexa pulse.

“No,” Lexa said. It was only partially a lie. “No, don’t worry.”

Clarke’s wide eyes were trained on the thick knot of flesh, no doubt wondering what she was meant to do now. Omegas’ bodies were designed to accept alphas’ knots, just like alphas’ bodies were designed to satisfy omegas’. But that was during heat. Outside of heat, without the proper hormones and lubrication, Clarke could be injured. And that was leaving aside the intentions knotting would imply to anyone who came within sniffing distance of the omega for the next several days. In Polis, Lexa’s claim would raise eyebrows, but it would grant protection. On the other side of the blockade, bearing the scent of the enemy might mean death.

Clarke was still staring, open-mouthed, and Lexa just managed to keep herself from fisting both hands in the furs at her side. Instead she drew the top sheet over her legs, concealing the offending organ from Clarke’s gaze.

“We don’t have to…” She took another careful breath. “It will go away on its own.”

Eventually.

“Oh.” Clarke looked as flushed as Lexa felt, yet she didn’t seem put off. In fact, the more heavy seconds that ticked by, the more her eyes gleamed. She began to walk her fingers down Lexa’s chest, offering a sly smile. “Maybe there’s some way I can help, though?”

Before Lexa could stammer out a stupefied answer, Clarke leaned in to capture her in a kiss. It felt gentler than before—tender and reverent—but somehow it burned even brighter.

Clarke’s fingers wandered down between her breasts, where sweat was beading, then over the taut muscles of her abdomen. They slipped beneath the sheet, searching, and any lingering words died on Lexa’s lips. When Clarke found the pulsing shaft between her legs, a ragged cry escaped her throat.

The hot grip around her knot was like nothing Lexa had ever felt before. In the last cognizant reaches of her mind, it occurred to her that it was a little like Clarke herself. Soft but ferocious. Exquisite but maddening. Dangerous but irresistible.

In short, all that Lexa wanted—and nothing she was meant to have.

 

* * *

 

In time, Lexa woke to rumpled furs beneath her head and a soothing omega hand trailing over her shoulder. Everything, everywhere was drenched in Clarke’s scent.

 _This is the afterlife_ , she thought for a moment. This was her reward among the stars. She was nearly sure of it—until Clarke spoke.

“If Octavia and I are going to get behind the blockade by dawn…”

Reality settled over Lexa like linens made of lead, and her breath hitched in silent protest. She did not open her eyes.

As she and Clarke had lain together, she had found herself wishing Clarke might yet choose to stay on in Polis. Surely she knew Lexa could keep her safe here. Safer, anyhow—at least for now.

But a Clarke who stayed, Lexa knew, would be no Clarke at all. She had meant what she’d almost said earlier, standing at the window in the hazy beams of afternoon light. She loved Clarke. She loved her for her loyalty. For her relentless spirit and unwavering conviction. For her dedication and devotion and honor.

Clarke served her people—her undeserving, brave, infuriating people—by choice and against all odds. She served them with the hallmarks of a great commander, but also the loving heart of a friend. She could not abandon them, and Lexa would not ask her to.

This would not be the first time they had been forced to part by powers greater than themselves. It would not be Lexa’s first attempt at farewell. Though neither she nor Clarke had spoken it aloud, they both knew that was what this was. Anything else—if there was ever to be anything else—would have to come later.

“Shh,” Lexa murmured into the furs, pushing off the reckoning.

She could nearly feel Clarke smile behind her. The hand on her shoulder meandered down her back, toward the dark ink along her spine.

“This is beautiful,” Clarke said of the tattoo.

Lexa willed herself not to tense. Not to shatter this peaceful moment with memories of violence long past. “I got it on my Ascension Day.” At last her eyes drifted open. “A circle for every Natblida that died when the Commander chose me.”

“Seven circles.” Clarke caressed each one. “I thought you said there were nine novitiates at your Conclave.”

“There were.” Lexa stared not at the furs, but into those nine children’s faces. All were stained black with blood, and one of them was her own.

“What happened to number eight?”

Slowly, she shifted onto her back to face Clarke. “Can we talk about something else?”

Clarke hesitated, and Lexa knew she was considering pressing the issue. She knew, too, that it would be impossible to deny her if she did. So she was grateful when Clarke’s searching eyes grew soft, and when the omega murmured in her ear.

“We don’t have to talk at all.”

Once more, they moved together. They moved as if they’d been doing it for years. As if this wasn’t only the second time. As if it wasn’t maybe the last.

When at last the room fell silent and Clarke was the one who faded into sleep, Lexa rose, shivering, and retrieved her discarded shirt and trousers from the floor. She had intended to speak with the ambassador from Sankru before day’s end, and a lifetime of other responsibilities awaited her in the throne room after that. It would be easier this way, she told herself—for Clarke, at least, if not for her.

She ghosted a final kiss over Clarke’s forehead. A base, selfish part of her not fit for any throne hoped the omega might sleep too long to leave.

But instead of fleeing to the wooden doors and the duties that waited beyond them, Lexa found herself lingering at the edge of the bed. She drew Clarke’s scent deep into her lungs and held it there, willing it to seep into her bones and stay. Only when spots threatened her vision did she finally exhale, sinking gingerly to the overstuffed mattress beside Clarke’s hip.

She had been a fool to think she would leave before she had to. To think she _could_ , even with all the alpha strength and Nightblood discipline in the world.

Instead, she watched Clarke’s chest rise and fall beneath the sheets. She studied the warm flush of her skin. The flutter of her eyelashes. The faint smile that curved her lips, and the tiny yellow hairs that curled at her temple. This would be the only likeness she had of Clarke to keep once she was gone, and she knew too well how images could fade. This one she needed to last. This one _would_ last, and she swore now that it would someday be joined by others yet to come.

She centered her spirit as she watched Clarke sleep, drawing strength for the days ahead from the dead commanders who lived on in her mind. How long had it been since she had sought solace from anyone else? Yet her forebears gently pushed back against each of her perfunctory attempts to descend into the wisdom of the Flame. They seemed to know already what it had taken her so long to see. For better or worse, it was Clarke Griffin who lent her power now.

Lexa threaded her fingers with Clarke’s, pressing a kiss to one pale knuckle. She would stay with her omega until their time was up. She would wake her, as was right, and she would return her to her people with hopeful half-promises and a whole, shining heart.

But not yet.

The night would come soon enough, whether she welcomed it or not. And something told Lexa it would be the darkest she’d seen in some time.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> As always, feedback is very welcome and much appreciated :)
> 
> * * *
> 
>  _Fayagon_ \- Gun  
>  _Sha?_ \- Yes?  
>  _Kongeda_ \- Coalition  
>  _Moba_ \- Sorry  
>  _Tek_ \- Technology


End file.
